


The End of the Line

by TetrodotoxinB



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Animal death (non-graphic; old age), Brain Injury, Brief References to Alcohol Abuse, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Dissociation, Grief, Hurt/No Comfort, Self-Harm, Service Animal, Suicide, amesia, parasuicidal behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 09:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11032959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: The fight in Siberia ends much differently. This is the aftermath.





	The End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [what makes you happy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10976955) by [icoulddothisallday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icoulddothisallday/pseuds/icoulddothisallday), [Lena7142](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lena7142/pseuds/Lena7142). 



> I saw the art and was grievously wounded. Then, I read the story and thought "yes, but what if this _really_ hurt?" Well, now you know.
> 
> A brief summary with triggers in the end notes.
> 
> Thanks to Icoulddothisallday and Lena7142 for graciously letting me riff off their work. And thanks to Sandy, who kindly beta'd this for me even though it killed her a little to do it.
> 
> Now available in [Chinese](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11049525) courtesy of [flymetothemoon16](http://archiveofourown.org/users/flymetothemoon16/pseuds/flymetothemoon16).

The risk had always been there that one day one, or both, of them wouldn’t walk away. It had happened before. Steve just didn’t expect it to happen again, not so soon. Not when Tony was the one who dealt the final blow.

There weren’t any tearful goodbyes or confessions of love. The final repulsor blast had hit Bucky square in the chest and by the time Steve got to him, he was gone. Tony stood there, like he was waiting for retaliation, but Steve just fell to his knees and wept. He didn’t even move when Tony collected the shield and he didn’t try to stop Tony when he took the ‘jet.

Long after Tony was gone, Steve stayed. He held Bucky in his arms and shook apart until it felt like the world came tumbling down around him. 

Eventually, when his heart had broken into so many pieces that he couldn’t put enough of it back to together to feel anything, Steve cleaned Bucky. He wrapped him in some sheets he took from the medical bay and carried him to one of the beds. Somewhere soft to rest if nothing else.

And then he was alone.

The sense of solitude was so profound it pulled the breath from him until he felt like his soul had been rent from his body. When he came back to himself it was morning again. Steve went to check on Bucky and he was already frozen through from the cold of Siberia. 

He wandered back to where they fought. He explored the facility. He wasn’t looking for anything, at least not until he found it.

The Chair sat at the center of the room. Steve had read the manuals. He knew how it worked. It didn’t take much to get the generator online and a few seconds later the control panels crackled to life. It worked. He shut it down again to save the gas in the generator.

His hesitations weren’t many. Sam, Clint, Scott, Wanda. 

Steve did some brief planning and he sent the info to Natasha. She would see to their release, early or otherwise. 

Another day passed. Maybe two. 

Steve didn’t check on Bucky anymore. 

He sat by a window and watched the sun ride low along the horizon before climbing back up, never fully setting. 

_Zzz, Zzz, Zzz_

Steve startled to discover that his phone was still on and pulled it out.

_Where are you? SW_

Steve stared at the phone. Something like relief, but more like acceptance, settled over him. Nat had taken care of them. It was all that had been left. All that he had been waiting for.

He turned around and saw the Chair. It seemed like some foregone conclusion. Like the inevitable. 

He stood and pulled the cord on the generator until it turned over. A dull hum filled the room and, after the silence of Siberia, it was deafening. Steve set the controls and moved the equipment around until he could reach the switch from the chair. Then, he pulled out his phone and sat down.

Steve texted the coordinates to Sam with the instructions “Come get me.”

He heard the text messages roll in one after the other until his phone beeped in warning. Finally, the battery died and the buzzing stopped. 

And the solitude closed back in. 

Steve didn’t believe in the afterlife, not anymore, but when he pressed the button he it felt like it was as close as he would ever get to Bucky again.

 

Steve knew something had happened to him. People didn’t just walk around with no idea of who they were, or at least he supposed they didn’t. He wouldn’t know if he were being honest. 

He did know, however, that very few people walked around with service dogs. 

It didn’t matter though. Steve felt light and living with Sam was nice. His dog Summer made most everything easier to do and he enjoyed playing fetch and taking her on runs.

Sometimes, Steve had episodes where he had strange visions of people that felt familiar but also not. It was like watching a movie that he’d seen. Familiar, but belonging to someone else. 

Some of the episodes weren’t so bad -- someone he suspected was his Ma and sometimes he saw people who seemed like friends -- but others were horrifying. 

 

“Sam?” Steve asked over breakfast one morning.

“Yeah?” Sam answered looking over the newspaper.

Steve leaned his head to the side pensively before speaking. “Am I- Did I fight in a war?”

Sam set down the paper and focussed on Steve. “Yeah, man. A few of them.”

That made sense. Steve knew Sam was a veteran and if they had known each other before then he probably was one too. It helped make the visions, _memories?_ , make sense. 

 

The winter is hard and the snow keeps Steve inside most days. He doesn’t know why the cold makes his episodes worse, but Sam seems to understand and Steve doesn’t really care to ask. No sense in remembering anything else, especially nothing that had obviously hurt him so much. 

 

  
When spring comes Steve ventures back out again and tries not to remember anymore than he already does. There’s something freeing in not knowing. It lets him just be. But he knows, too, that the forgetting was something he wanted and he’s terrified of remembering. 

But as the spring moves into summer he remembers more. He gets lost hiking. Burns food. Can’t complete a conversation. Eventually, he has to tell Sam. 

“Yeah, man. I kinda figured,” he says.

Steve nods and doesn’t argue when Sam gives him a bracelet to wear that has a tracking chip in it. 

 

Steve wakes up in bed with Summer gently nuzzling his face and Sam sitting in a chair by the bed.

“What happened?” Steve asks. Sam isn’t a coddler so he wouldn’t be sitting by Steve’s bed unless there’s a problem.

“I called and you didn’t answer. When you didn’t come back from your run by dark, I found you with the chip.”

Steve nods and rubs Summer. He tries not to think of the memories that came up. A couple of them were good but most were nothing but nightmares. He knows now why he forgot. He wishes he could again. 

“How long was I out?”

Sam’s face pulls tight but his voice is even. “Just overnight.”

_Just overnight._ Steve shakes his head. They’re getting worse.

 

  
It comes back to him in fits and starts. Never all the way, brain injuries never do. But he knows what he tried to forget. He knows enough now to know that he’s nothing more than a burden. He’s heard enough to know that they’re mad. He remembers enough to know what it is to be a dead weight and he wishes that he had done a better job the first time he tried to forget.

 

  
One day that fall, Sam loads Steve and Summer into their car and they drive to a veterans’ cemetery. Steve isn’t sure what they’re doing but doesn’t want to ask. He’s willing to follow in ignorance if only to delay the inevitable remembering, but that only lasts so long.

The walk across the cemetery is long and Steve lets Summer off her leash while Sam talks. 

“Nat and Clint went back. He was there where you put him. Hill found the folks who thawed you to try to save him but he was already gone. They buried him here.”

Steve knows why they didn’t bring him to the funeral. He hates being fragile but Sam is always right. He probably couldn’t have handled it. 

They stop in front of a headstone and Steve knows that he would’ve broken. He breaks anyway, glad that no one has to deal with it but Summer and Sam.

_James Buchanan Barnes_  
_Sgt_  
_US Army_  
_WWII_  
_March 10 1917_  
_May 10 2016_  
_Prisoner of War_

Steve sits down hard and remembers falling apart like this in Siberia. He prays for Siberia. For the mercy of the Chair.

It doesn’t come.

 

It’s July now. Steve turned 100 a few days ago. It doesn’t matter now that he knows Bucky is dead. He asked Sam once what happened to service dogs if their owner dies. 

“Some can go on to help new people but most can’t.”

Steve figures it’s the dog version of depression and doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he smiles at her when she wags her tail and he throws the ball again. 

 

  
Sam eventually stops trying to get Steve to go to group or even journal. Nat and the others don’t call much anymore and no one visits. He knows that it’s no more than he deserves after putting all of them through this. So instead of dwell, he spends his days with Summer.

Steve and Summer stay inside during the cold months and run when it grows warm. As the years pass, they walk instead of run, and by the end Steve just carries her.

 

The day they finally have to put her down Steve cradles her. He bites back his tears when the vet puts the needle in and he chokes back his sobs as he wraps her in a sheet just like he did for Bucky all those years ago. Sam drives them home, crying softly next to Steve. 

Steve waves him off when they get home and Sam lets Steve bury her out back by the irises. 

 

  
After that Steve is like a ghost in the house. It goes on for weeks until Sam finally fills out the paperwork for another service dog. He forges Steve’s signature and mails it off.

The next morning Steve is gone. 

Sam checks the trails in the woods behind their house. He checks the tracker in Steve’s bracelet. It’s off. Sam calls Nat and Clint.

After a week, they call everyone on their list, including Tony. It’s the first any of them have spoken to him in years. 

It doesn’t matter. They can’t find him.

 

  
And then the tracker comes on-line two weeks after Steve disappeared. Everyone gears up to fly out. Tony pays for it all. No one says thank you and Tony doesn’t ask. Sam sees the yellowing of Tony's eyes on the video chat and knows. He sees too many vets like that when they can’t cope any other way and turn to the bottle. 

Vengefully, Sam feels better that Tony can’t live with it either.

 

The tracker takes them to Nova Scotia. Cliffs line the edge of the ocean and the water is frigid. Sam knows what they’ll find before they ever get close.

Steve’s clothes are neatly folded and weighted down under a rock. His shoes sit next to the clothes. The tracking bracelet is in his left shoe, his and Bucky’s dog tags are in the right. 

Sam can’t bring himself to look over the edge so he sits by the clothes while Clint goes and peers over the edge. Nothing but rocks at low tide. 

 

  
Tony pays a private forensics team to come out and investigate but Sam goes home. The paperwork for the dog is back. Sam fills out the check to complete the application and mails it. 

The forensics comes back a few days later. It’s Steve. Sam locks himself inside for a week and does nothing but cry and sleep. Nat comes and goes without Sam ever answering the door. 

Finally, he comes out of the house and in another two weeks he picks up Steve’s new dog. The handler smiles as she talks about the dogs. She tells him how much she loves reading and how she names all her dogs after dogs from literature. Steve's, or rather Sam's, dog’s name is Buck. Sam smiles and nods and tries not to cry on the spot.

He pretends to be Steve for the duration of the training and breathes a sigh of relief when they finally go home. 

But home is empty and after only a few hours Sam packs a few things and Buck into the car. They drive until the trees thin and then disappear entirely. After several days, he sees a sign for a peer group for veterans that meets at a local church. He waits around another day and stops in for the meeting. Then, he hangs around for the one the next week. And then the week after that. 

It takes Sam six months to realize that he lives there now. He works part time at a local clinic, picking up overflow patients. He even takes over the peer group for the guy who had been doing it for the last five years. It feels like something resembling life and Sam is okay with that.

 

  
Sam is walking to work with Buck when Nat pulls up at the curb. 

“I need your help,” she says rolling down the window.

Sam stops and stares before starting up again. 

“Please, Sam. Clint and I have a lead on Rollins and-”

Sam stops and turns. “No. I’m done. I’m out. Find someone else.” He clutches at Buck’s leash and Buck nuzzles Sam’s leg. He tries to conceal the tremor in his hand by threading his fingers into Buck’s fur.

Nat drops her eyes to his hand and then nods. “Yeah, alright, Sam. Take care.” 

Sam nods stiffly but says nothing as she drives away. After a moment he gathers himself and turns back home. He calls in to the clinic and takes a sick day. Sam curls up on the sofa with Buck and turns on some Bob Ross reruns that he keeps on the DVR. 

Life isn’t always easy but it isn’t bad either. And after everything, it’s enough. It has to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Tony kills Bucky in Siberia. Overcome with grief Steve subjects himself to the Chair as a last resort. Sam takes him in and gets him a service dog, Summer. Over time Steve's memories come back and he stays alive only for the benefit of Summer. When she dies he leaves and commits suicide leaving Sam to put the pieces back together again. Brief mentions of alcoholism.


End file.
